Numb
by Madj
Summary: Kate can't feel anything.


Disclaimer: The characters of "Terminator 3" don't belong to me. I'm just playing with them for a sec, and I'll put them back unharmed when I'm done.  
  
~*~  
  
"Do you want to have sex?"  
  
At the sound of her voice, John Connor nearly dropped the .45 he was examining. He'd known Kate was there, of course. He seemed to have developed a radar where she was concerned and a need to know where she was all the time. He figured it was a combination of them being two of the last people alive on the planet and the still-surreal concept that they were fated to be married one day that kept him so attuned to her every move.  
  
He was surprised, though, because she hadn't spoken more than twenty words to him in the two weeks they'd been here, since Judgment Day, the end of the world. And now she was asking him to have *sex*?  
  
He carefully set down the gun before he blew off his foot or some other important body part, then turned to face her. She leaned in the doorway, dressed in the standard-issue fatigues they'd uncovered in the shelter. She was too pale and much too thin, and he reminded himself to force both of them to eat something that night.   
  
They needed their strength.  
  
He cleared his throat. "Um. Huh?"  
  
"Do you want to have sex?" She spoke slowly, moving out of the door, closer to him. He reminded himself not to notice that while she'd lost too much weight and was unhealthily pale, she was still pretty. That was irrelevant information at the moment, anyway.  
  
"With you?" he asked, wincing as he realized how stupid it sounded.  
  
"No, with the other woman trapped in this fallout shelter with you." The words were sarcastic, but her tone was perfectly even. She might as well have been a cyborg herself. "Of course, with me."  
  
Connor pondered the various responses he could make. There was the "man of few words" response, where he threw her down on the table and had his way with her. Or he could say "Hey, I'm alive and breathing, of *course* I want to have sex with you." Or maybe "Gee, you weren't this easy when I was trying to feel you up back in junior high."  
  
While he was still thinking, Kate moved in front of him, and he felt her short fingernails sliding across his stomach before she started tugging his T-shirt out of his pants. Connor could feel his heart speeding up, his body beginning to react against his will.  
  
He grabbed her wrists. "Why?" he asked harshly.  
  
She stared up at him blankly, and he gently pulled her hands away from his waist. "Why?" he asked again, softly this time.  
  
For a moment, he wasn't sure she would answer, but she stepped back from him slightly and sighed. "I thought ... I wanted to *feel* something," she said. "Everyone I love is dead. Everything I know is gone. We're trapped here, together. Perfect strangers. And we're supposed to ... I don't know. Save the world? I don't know what I'm supposed to do. And I know I should be upset, worried, scared, and I *can't feel anything.* I thought, if we had sex, at least I would feel something."  
  
*Everyone I love is dead.* That stung. Not because he expected her to love him, not yet. Despite their supposed future together, they barely knew one another. But he realized he was jealous. She'd had people to love, something to lose. And he'd had nothing. Nobody to miss. Nobody to miss *him.* It seemed like a stupid, petty thing to be jealous about, but he was only human.  
  
"So," he said insolently, wanting to get a reaction from her. "You want to be able to close your eyes and pretend Scott is still alive?"  
  
The punch surprised him, for some reason, but he wasn't surprised at the force of it. He knew first-hand how tough she could be if necessary.  
  
"You bastard," she hissed. "Don't you dare talk to me about him."  
  
He held a hand to his eye as she stormed off. It would definitely be black tomorrow. Connor managed a small smile. He certainly wasn't getting laid any time soon, but at least he'd managed to get her to feel something.  
  
Being angry is better than being numb any day.  
  
End 


End file.
